I’m so confused. I have so many questions, and answers are unlikely (until at least next week, when the finale of TAR7 airs). Why did Meredith and Gretchen always pick the harder physical task? Why is TAR7 going backwards? They usually go west to east Why England? That’s too easy this late in the game. Why the hell do Rob and Amber always win prizes? Has Ron figured out his only chance at freedom is “Flee. Now.”? The mini-recap is up at TWOP: In a significant change from previous seasons, the Race course turns back to the West and heads…

Lynn and Alex, the Happy Boys For some reason, late in the season of Amazing Race I run out of steam as far as putting up posts and listing all the teams and how they did. This is the third season that has aired since I started blogging, and every time it’s the same. It’s not that I lose the love for my show, it’s that trying to keep track of all the teams in the confusing first 3 weeks or so is part of the charm. There’s a lot more wild-card onscreen drama and comedy, and it’s a lot…

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Yesterday was quite a day – we started out in the morning, relatively early, to grab a nice breakfast and drive all the way up to Kettle Moraine State Forest (South) for a short hike in the woods. It was a nicer day for it than we expected but we only took a couple of photos. It was the longest drive we’ve taken in the new car (Ford Escape Hybrid) and we geeked out in a couple of ways; namely we set up a competition between the portable navigation system (Fred, who’s pretty smart and…

I went looking for information on the “Can’t Stop The Signal” sneak preview of “Serenity” and found comments on Whedonesque to the effect that the Chicago screening is already sold out. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that almost all of the ten screenings on May 5th at 10pm are sold out already. Fooey. But it’s a Thursday – we would have gotten home at about… 1am. Oh, well. Sucks to be middle-aged and employed. So I’ll wait for the official release date of September 30. And yes, this is another one of those examples of the fans of…

SciFi Wire announces its slate of original SF/Fantasy/Alternate Reality series. “Original” is such a relative term, isn’t it? An untitled project executive-produced by Academy Award-winning actor/producer Michael Douglas, based on the work of the late author Shirley Jackson (The Haunting of Hill House). Storylines and themes from Jackson’s catalog of supernatural short stories will be woven into her real life experiences transitioning from urban mom to small-town matriarch. Michael Douglas isn’t exactly known for genre movies or shows. A production credit for Starman (movie, series) doesn’t exactly establish his SF cred. Why this? Why now? Imagine if “Eerie, Indiana” or…

It’s time to go to India again, and you know what that means. Harrowing driving! A Roadblock of the needle-in-a-haystack variety requires patience and an orderly approach and, in Gretchen’s case, a lot of head-scratching and spinning around. Oh, and there’s a Yield, but no one uses it. The Detour entices all five teams to take on the task of serving tea to a collection of Indian bureaucrats (really!), and chaos ensues. Meredith and Gretchen fall behind by a large margin in a short time and trail all day, leaving us all to speculate about whether they’re about to lose…

AAAAAAAAAAAH! A double leg on TAR7! With a “To Be Continued” after a totally bitchin’ fakeout flip-flop floozy on the floy floy. It ended with Rob and Amber trotting triumphantly up to Phil on the roof of a Lucknow apartment block. There they were hit with a giant double-eyebrow pop, no pit stop and no hot greeter, just I gotcher clue right here, its name is just Sameer, and there’s no 12 hour rest for you, dear. Can you? Can you? Keep racing or not, can you?” Holy cow. Pooooor Rob and Amber. Sucks to be them, they thought they…

The recaplet is up: Adventures in Botswana continue as the teams start with a clue hunt that sends Brian and Greg into a spin. From there, they head to a Detour that includes goat-milking and the fine art of carrying stuff on your head. Ron and Kelly bicker their way through the goat-milking, while Lynn digs himself into a controversial hole with a crack about Uchenna and Joyce being “born to” carry things on their heads. Oh, and Rob and Amber are highly functional and work their way into first place again. The Roadblock involves dragging logs and driving through…

Dammit. JUST… dammit. TWOP: “Houston, We Have An Elephant.” Something went horrible-pearsheaped with the Brothers, who weren’t that far behind the two trailing teams at the outset, but went wrong and wandered around aimlessly for a little too long. The editing made it clear that all the preceding teams watched carefully for little yellow-and-red route markers attached to roadside bushes, and the Brothers Awesomeov never remarked “oh, there’s a marker,” so I think they took a wrong turn. As they remarked on discovering their error, “We are idiots.” Where the hell was the damn bunching?? Where the hell was flying…